Fish Out of Water

                             

  

Classes started this week. Today, I had a class called Social Influences on Behavior and already, I can tell it’s going to be one of my very favorites. It’s like if Psychology and Anthropology had a lovechild - and it is fantastic.

Today, my professor talked about culture and how it shapes who we are, how we view ourselves, and how we view our world. We talked about the saying “a fish out of water.” The adage was nothing new to me, and I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on the idea, but as my professor was talking, I realized how little thought I’d ever given it.

See, I had always taken this phrase pretty literally. “A fish out of water,” to me, just represented being outside of your comfort zone, or outside of your area of knowledge. It meant being uncomfortable and flopping around on the deck and generally looking pretty stupid.

In class though, Professor Ataca’s “a fish out of water” meant someone who was outside of their home, or culture. She talked about how we each have a culture, whether we’re aware of it or not. Here, culture is the rolling purr of the Turkish language, the kebap’s and döner’s that they eat, the cadence of prayer call five times each day. It is the practice of offering tea as a sign of welcoming another person into your home. It is dropping by a friend’s house randomly instead of making an appointment to see someone (and welcoming others when they do the same). It is taking off your shoes as you enter someone else’s home. We talked in class about how no one culture is superior. My own American culture is no better or worse than anyone else’s and while it is extremely different from the culture here in Istanbul in many ways, it is also strangely similar at the same time. This is not unique to American/Turkish cultures, either. All cultures are simultaneously so vastly different and so oddly the same.

My professor didn’t just point out that the water represents someone’s culture, though. She went on to say “A fish can only see the water once it is removed from it.” It reminded me so much of David Foster Wallace's speech about culture and day in, day out living. I’ve only been in Turkey two-ish weeks, but man am I aware of my “water.” Never before have I been so painfully aware of my every movement. It’s as if I’m in the 7^th grade, trying to impress some boy again. Only this time, I am aware of how dumb I look and sound. Being in classes surrounded by people speaking Turkish makes my Midwest accent feel all wrong.

And this is where I have to think about how I’m thinking. Because in my bad moments, it’s easy to start thinking I am the center of the universe (like Wallace talked about) and fall into my ethnocentric ways. And in those moments, it’s so unbelievably easy to be frustrated by the unfamiliar and write it off as wrong or inferior. I can catch myself thinking “Ugh. Turkish is so complicated. English is much easier (which is so false). This is a university that teaches in English – why can’t they understand me?” I catch myself getting frustrated by the way they stand in the middle of the already tiny sidewalks and don’t move an inch when I offer up a “pardon?” (which may not even be the correct phrase to use). I find myself thinking things like “Well, back at home ________.”

But that’s just it, isn’t it? This is not back home, and I shouldn’t be looking at Turkey as if it should be Kansas. It shouldn’t be falling short of being America. That’s the whole point and beauty of studying abroad – experiencing a new culture that is so different from home.

I was talking to a dear sweet friend about my trip so far and was telling her how my expectations and reality had been so different, how I had thought every single second would be this huge adventure, but a lot of the reality is day in, day out living. She then said to me “That’s the amazing part… you really are living life there in a whole different culture and part of the world. That means the boring stuff, too. You are brushing your teeth there, eating weird foods there, doing laundry there and going to class.” And she’s completely right. This isn’t some week-long vacation where I have to make every minute count, sightseeing and checking things off of a to-do list.

That’s the really cool part. I get to make a home in an entirely new place for 5 months. I get to be settled here, doing life here. Which means going to school and grocery shopping and reading and watching Netflix when I can. It means experiencing day in, day out in a whole new place and finding ways to create new and different meaning in that. It’s deciding, moment by moment, to remember that choosing to be a fish out of water doesn’t mean I’m dumb and a failure, but that I had the courage to leave the water in the first place.